In a major breakthrough, Himachal Pradesh Police have nabbed one of three undertrials, who had escaped from modern central Jail, Kanda, 14 kms from Shimla.

Director General of Police Somesh Goyal ,who is also the DGP (prisons), said Prem Bahadur—a rape case accused at Rampur in Shimla district, was arrested late Thursday night from Sayari forest area of Kunihar in Solan district. He hoped that other two—Leela Dhar and Pratap Sing—will also be nabbed soon.

Revealing the information early this morning, Goyal wrote on his Facebook account, “Just now received the information that one escapee from Kanda Jail has been arrested from the forests of Sayari in Kunihar area of Solan district.”

He complimented Shimla SP Soumya Sambasivan, Solan district Police and also the Jail staff of Kanda (Shimla) for their hard work and success to arrest the escaped person, who is a resident of Nepal.

“Special mention must be made of Ms Soumya ( SP Shimla) who diligently pursued the investigation and did not lose focus even once. Thirty Prison personnel were also pressed into the hunt to nab the escapees,” Goyal said.

The prisoners, two of them accused of rape and one facing murder charges at Kullu, had escaped from the jail on December 6—just a day before state police ‘s ‘Raising Day function’. All three were Nepal nationals who had together planned the jailbreak. READ MORE

The police apparently took it as a challenge and sounded an alert to all district police units in Shimla, Solan and Sirmaur to stop them from escaping to their country i.e Nepal.

The DGP said, “It is believed that the two others were also somewhere hiding in Shimla or Solan districts. We will make solve this case soon” he hoped.

On Thursday, state Governor Acharya Devvrat, who was the chief guest at the Raising Day function of the police, had asked the security force to bring back the confidence and trust of the citizens by professionally doing their job. “ Few incidents recently happened in the state. Those would not be allowed to reoccur,” he said indirectly referring to rape and murder case of a 16-year-old girl at Kotkhai.

Nine policemen, including eight members of the SIT which was probing the case, are in jail after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) found that one suspect lost his life due to police torture at the Kotkhai police station during the remand in the rape and murder case.